Understanding
by Map of my mind
Summary: They need to find a way to understand each other. My version of their 'morning after.'


As assassins, as world heroes, as Avengers you would think they were immune to 'the morning after,' and all the problems that come with it.

Apparently she was wrong.

She could have handled it better if he had been blunt, if he had kicked her out and requested a new partner, violence and anger were things she knew well, she could handle them but what he did scared her. He wouldn't even look at her.

She knew, he knew, she was there. He always knew. But he still wouldn't turn around, would not even acknowledge her presence.

And so she did one of two things that the Black Widow just did not do, she panicked. They had slept together and she had not been drunk, he hadn't either, she had opened herself up to him and most terrifying of all she had felt safe, even just for a moment.

And unlike her usual routine with situations like these, she had felt absolutely no need to disappear during the early hours of the morning.

She was already regretting that decision.

The odd pain in her chest (the one that had originally made itself known when she had almost lost him in Greece on a mission a few years back) that he frequently drew from her, made itself known once again and her hands began to shake.

No! Her mind screamed at her, you are the Black Widow, you do not feel, well not 'that' emotion at least. She'd been ignoring its existence for years, writing it off as childish but her heart warred with her head, she was falling apart and she couldn't figure out when it was that the infamous Black Widow had given that much power over to one man. And that man, it seemed had decided to break her.

She had spent years trying to make herself emotionless, spent copious amounts of time stamping on her feelings but this one just kept attacking her when she was least expecting it. Slowly, torturously tearing down her walls one at a time. Even the 'Red Room' couldn't stop this feeling no matter how much they told her it was wrong, pathetic or childish.

"Morning," she whispered, for lack of anything else to say, he was ignoring her, so it probably didn't matter what she said. The fact that she at all was a feat in itself, as it was she could have killed herself because her voice cracked.

* * *

And suddenly he was looking at eyes wide with shock, as he took her in wearing his shirt and definitely not preparing to leave as he thought she would be. Instead she was standing in the middle of his small kitchen looking, for all the world as though she was lost, as though such a thing was possible for her.

He swallowed heavily, not sure what to do. He had expected her to be gone when he woke up but she hadn't been, then when she had woke up he had expected her to leave quietly trying to avoid his notice or give a quick explanation of how this was a onetime thing because they were partners and it wouldn't work. He had gone through a thousand different scenarios in his head, all ending with an emotionless Black Widow and a seriously messed up Clint. But he hadn't expected this.

Natasha stood before him, not the black widow, just Nat, the one that only he was allowed to see and only for short periods of time. It had taken him years to get her to even smile let alone laugh, in fact last night was something he had been working up to for months and something he hadn't expected for a long time yet. Something he had been hoping for much, much longer. Since he met her actually.

* * *

Natasha held her breath as realisation dawned in Clint's eyes, and the expression on his face changed, well his micro expression any way (you wouldn't expect anything less from a master assassin) then he was smirking, his usual know it all, snarky smirk, one of the many things she secretly admired about him. But it was his eyes that gave him away, the stormy grey depths were suddenly filled with a happiness that no one as dirty and messed up as they were had a right to.

Her brows furrowed, wondering at the sudden change, trying not to feel relieved that he was no longer ignoring her, lest she hope in something that won't be. Hoping had always let her down in the past and this was the one time she knew she could not handle the fall out.

Her mind could be torn down a million times and she could still rebuild herself stronger, her body could take more pain than most people would ever feel and still she would endure, she had done it before but if her heart, the heart that she had given to him, was broken now she knew she would never recover, she could never be remade again.

She needn't have worried because he explained himself in one word and that one relieved all her fears, fulfilled all her dreams.

"Tasha" he said her name (one that only he ever had a right to use) as a caress, and she understood.

Understood that he was just as scared as she was, understood that he held the same doubt, understood that he meant every action last night as an explanation of himself, of his feelings, they had always been better at communicating without words. She knew in that one word he said I care, even the morning after. He said that I still want you in the light of day, scars and all. He said I won't hurt you, not deliberately and I don't care what everyone else will say, not even Fury.

In that one word he said 'love is for children', but I will be a child for the rest of my days.

She had never been good with expressing her feelings, nothing could tell him the anguish she felt or the happiness that he gave her but she had to try. So she told him the only way she knew how. "Clint".

* * *

And to his ears no word ever sounded so sweet because he understood.


End file.
